September, 2018

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This Agile Contract Could Save Your Next Project

The Digital Project Manager

The post This Agile Contract Could Save Your Next Project appeared first on The Digital Project Manager.

Agile 222
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Rogue Project Sponsor: What to Do when Sponsorship goes Bad

Online PM Courses

One of the things that can make your life most difficult is a rogue Project Sponsor. It’s like they have turned to the dark side. And it feels as if they no longer have your project’s best interests at heart. Let me start by re-assuring you… A truly rogue Project Sponsor is not common. . So, why should you read this? . For two reasons: Because, if it does happen to you, you need to be prepared.

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Plausible or probable?

Musings on Project Management

Ponder this for a moment: Adding detail to the description of an uncertainty may make it seem less probable (the more you know, the less you think it will happen than a more abstract version), though it may make it more plausible Now move forward to that first tool of choice among risk managers, the risk register.

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7 Ways to Sell Agile to Project Stakeholders

LiquidPlanner

Whether you’re making the move to Agile project management in your development group or creating an Agile process for your in-house project management methodology, chances are you’re going to have to sell this change to executives in your organization. And, they’re going to be business people too. This means you have to have a really strong business case, no matter how logical and even obvious switching to an Agile system might be.

Agile 755
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Understand Digital Debt, Form a Team, Set Goals, and Plan Roadmap for Transformation

Understanding digital debt is crucial before digital transformation. Assemble a team to assess internal operations, market pressures, and digital debt's impact. Define future digital vision with measurable goals. Refine hypotheses and conduct market analysis. Develop a roadmap for transformation with defined projects, cost estimates, and governance.

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Product Backlog and Sprint Backlog: A Quick Guide

ProjectManager.com

Agile project management can be a great help in a wide variety of projects, but if it is not fully understood, there will be problems. In Agile, there are unique terms and ways of working that can be bewildering for those new to the methodology. Unfortunately, if the whole team is not familiar with the Agile framework and its terms, things can become inefficient.

SCRUM 359

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What is a Stakeholder in Project Management?

Planio

If it takes a village to raise a child, then it’s safe to say it takes a whole city to run a project. No matter how agile and lean you try to run your projects there are inevitably going to be a lot of people involved in getting you from project proposal to launch day. One very important group of these people are your project stakeholders. What exactly is a project stakeholder?

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10 Of the Best Scrum Tools to Increase Your Team’s Productivity

The Digital Project Manager

Compare the best Scrum tools by pricing, features, integrations, and pros & cons in this expert project management review. These tools facilitate the Scrum framework, encouraging collaboration, transparency, and efficiency among your team. The post 10 Of the Best Scrum Tools to Increase Your Team’s Productivity appeared first on The Digital Project Manager.

SCRUM 285
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Asking for Project Management Advice

Project Risk Coach

I've observed scores of project managers through the years. Some manage projects with no input from others. Others are not afraid of asking for project management advice. How about you? Have you ever been lost without a GPS or map? Not sure where you are or how to get to where you want to be? I've been there. It's nerve-racking and embarrassing, particularly if you have passengers.

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The PM Skills You Can Forget About (And the Ones You Really Need to Know)

LiquidPlanner

What are the project management skills that you really need to focus on today? I hear from project managers every week who aren’t sure what skills they should be building on. So much of what you might have read about online or in project management books, or even be taught on training courses, is simply not aligned the skills we need to use every day.

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Strategic Finance Essentials: A Project Manager’s Guide to Financial Impact

Speaker: Ketan Jahagirdar - Sopheon’s Director of Product Management

Empower yourself as a project manager with insights that directly influence the financial landscape and strategic direction of your organization! Join us for a deep dive into the world of financial strategy, as we dissect key metrics that drive CFOs and business leaders’ investment decisions.This session will equip you with the necessary tools to craft compelling business cases as well as a comprehensive understanding of the crucial distinction between capital expenditure and operational expendi

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How Data Visualization Tools Can Improve Your Project Management

ProjectManager.com

People process information differently, and there are many types of intelligences. According to developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, there are nine types of intelligences , which explain how individuals learn. One type of intelligence that Gardner coined is spatial, which means picture smart. While most people have a melting pot of different types to help them learn, the use of visuals tends to benefit most people.

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Ratios! Some good; some evil

Musings on Project Management

Ratio's. as commonly applied. often violate the higher law: "Do good; avoid evil" Poster child for the evil ratio: Wouldn't it be nice if we could ban % Complete from the lexicon of project management! % Complete is a ratio, numerator/denominator. The big issue is with the denominator.

Estimate 231
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How many hats should a Scrum Master wear?

Kiron Bondale

I’ve run into a few situations recently where Scrum Masters (SMs) are performing multiple roles and while they might have the capacity to do so, on any moderate sized initiative, it might be difficult for them to fulfill all the responsibilities of the SM role. Some people may challenge this by stating that the SM needs capacity for daily standups, sprint planning, sprint reviews & retrospectives, but that should still leave them plenty of time to take on another role.

SCRUM 212
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Availability is Not a Skill Set! 5 Tips for Resource Allocation

Rebel’s Guide to PM

“Who is free to work on this task?”. That’s something all project managers will hear at some time or another. And it isn’t the best way to allocate work to your project team members. After all, would you have brain surgery done by a surgeon who specialises in feet just because he or she happened to be free that day? Of course not. Would you ask a colleague to give a presentation to the board, just because they happened to have some spare time?

2014 297
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20 Common Mistakes Made by Inexperienced Project Managers

You’ve read the PMBOK® Guide several times, taken the certification exam for project managers, passed, and you are now a PMP®. So why do you keep making rookie mistakes? This whitepaper shows 20 of the most common mistakes that young or inexperienced project managers make, issues that can cost significant time and money. It's a good starting point for understanding how and why many PMs get themsleves into trouble, and provides guidance on the types of issues that PMs need to understand.

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Nine Awesome Benefits in the World of Stakeholder Management

Project Risk Coach

John has been failing to exploit and enhance the benefits of stakeholder management. Why? He's not been be convinced of the benefits. Allow me to pull back the veil and share nine benefits of stakeholder management. If you are a Project Management Professional (PMP), you’ve likely studied Chapter 13 of the Project Management Body of Knowledge – Stakeholder Management , which was added in the Fifth Edition.

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5 Steps to Making Your Project Meetings Effective

LiquidPlanner

“As a leader, you must consistently drive effective communication. Meetings must be deliberate and intentional—your organizational rhythm should value purpose over habit and effectiveness over efficiency.”- Chris Fussell. —. Meetings. They are the bane of every project managers existence, consuming wide swaths of the calendar without any appreciation for real work to be accomplished.

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How to Make a Good Impression on your New Boss

ProjectManager.com

How do you make a good impression on your new boss? Well, first you should try to understand what it means to be a boss in general. A new boss is both a fresh-faced individual, and someone who is filling a defined role. Recognize that the responsibilities of that role are largely universal. A boss is hired by a company in order to manage, lead and successfully complete the projects for which they’re responsible.

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3-point estimates. good for you!

Musings on Project Management

Here's my three point estimate paradox: We all know we must estimate with three points (numbers). so we do it, reluctantly None of us actually want to work with (do arithmetic with) the three points we estimate. In a word, three point estimates suck -- not convenient, thus often put aside even if estimated -- and most of all: who among us can do arithmetic with three point estimates?

Estimate 210
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The Big Payoff of Application Analytics

Outdated or absent analytics won’t cut it in today’s data-driven applications – not for your end users, your development team, or your business. That’s what drove the five companies in this e-book to change their approach to analytics. Download this e-book to learn about the unique problems each company faced and how they achieved huge returns beyond expectation by embedding analytics into applications.

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Helping functional managers through an agile transformation

Kiron Bondale

A lot has been written about the challenges caused by functional managers when their company undergoes an agile transformation. But with this emphasis on what they shouldn’t be doing, not as much gets published about the specific activities we should be doing to help them through the change. Here are four questions to ask when considering this key role.

Agile 189
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How to Create a SIPOC Model for Process Creation or Improvement [SIPOC Template Download]

Project Bliss

If you have a project that involves any type of process improvement, a SIPOC Model is a great tool to get your team started. And you don’t need to have six sigma training to use this simple tool. It’s a great tool to facilitate discussion and common understanding when dealing with processes that can be complex – and gets you off to a great start.

Process 149
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Digital Transormation Projects (3) - The Path to Digital Transformation

Inloox

In part 1 and 2 of our blog series we have dealt with the basic aspects of digital transformation. We have based our work on the following definition: A digital transformation is a process of disruption ("destruction") and subsequent renewal. Old patterns are broken up and replaced by new, more efficient processes and structures. Finally, in the third and last part of this series, we will describe a possible path to digital transformation.

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Best Agile Books for Project Managers

Rebel’s Guide to PM

In this video I share my top picks for books on Agile, especially for those of you new to Agile or considering moving your organisation to Agile ways of working. These are my current favourite books on agile for project managers. Under the video you’ll see details of each of the books mentioned. Don’t Spook the Herd by Dan Milller. A practitioner guide to Agile.

Agile 212
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How to Stay Competitive in the Evolving State of Martech

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

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How to Plan a Webinar

ProjectManager.com

As the workforce becomes more mobile, the importance of webinars has only grown. Jennifer Bridges, PMP, shows you everything you need to know to plan a webinar. Here’s a screenshot of the whiteboard for your reference! In Review – How to Plan a Webinar. As when planning any project , Jennifer noted that the first step is to go through the who, what, when, where, why and how of the webinar.

Planning 288
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Hybrid Agile. what's that?

Musings on Project Management

What's the hybrid thing? It's agile coexisting in the same project with a traditional methodology, presumably for the swim lanes that are not software. Some call hybrid agile as: agile in the waterfall Are hybrids practical? After all, the traditional is top down planned, most requirements up front, much system testing at the end, etc. Agile is the not-traditional.

Agile 186
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Are regulatory projects a better fit for adaptive or deterministic delivery approaches?

Kiron Bondale

During a presentation at a local agile meetup this past week I asked the audience to think about what sorts of projects, products or organizations wouldn’t be a good fit for the use of agile or adaptive approaches and one of the attendees felt that regulatory projects weren’t suitable. Non-discretionary compliance projects present many challenges, but does this make them help or hinder their delivery via agile approaches?

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Voice of the Customer (VOC): a Powerful Tool for Valuable Customer Insight

Project Bliss

Getting the Voice of the Customer (VOC) tells you if you’re on the right track in your product or process improvement project. If you want to know that you’re on the right track when you’re leading a process or product improvement project, how can you be sure you’re addressing the right concerns? Your team knows there are opportunities to improve, but you don’t want to waste time on the wrong things.

Process 136
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From Complexity to Clarity: Strategies for Effective Compliance and Security Measures

Speaker: Erika R. Bales, Esq.

When we talk about “compliance and security," most companies want to ensure that steps are being taken to protect what they value most – people, data, real or personal property, intellectual property, digital assets, or any other number of other things - and it’s more important than ever that safeguards are in place. Let’s step back and focus on the idea that no matter how complicated the compliance and security regime, it should be able to be distilled down to a checklist.